


who were so dark of heart they might not speak

by York



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Homophobia, Kissing, M/M, Panic Attacks, Pre-Epilogue, it's a nice date too, they go on a date
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-19
Updated: 2017-03-19
Packaged: 2018-10-07 14:28:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10362498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/York/pseuds/York
Summary: In this moment, it was the easiest it's ever been to see where Blue was coming from.Adam deals with dating, hand-holding, the bad opinions of other people, and self-care.





	

"Loser." Ronan threw the toothpick from his sandwich at him in response.

It was romantic, really, even though Adam insisted on teasing him for it: a red-neon and milkshake diner on the edge of Henrietta with waffle buns and a jukebox. Ronan had kicked the offending machine on the way in because it didn't have any of his usual trash, and it flickered pathetically in its age. "Treat the elderly with respect," Adam had said. "No," Ronan had replied.

Their ankles were touching underneath the table, light-hearted enough to have started some light footsie. Ronan was holding Adam's hand across the table a minute ago, but released it when the waitress came by to refill their drinks. He took it back after she left.

It was spring, and Aglionby had managed to be a refuge from the news that Adam and Ronan were dating. They both rather liked keeping it that way. With Ronan having dropped out, they didn't have to concern themselves with avoiding public displays of hand-holding very much, except in places like these. Adam was secretly disappointed that he was deprived of making out with his boyfriend against the hallway lockers like some classic high school experience, but they made up for it by spending nearly all of their time together outside of work, school, and studying — which was, well, not much for Adam.

So they took their dates when they could, held hands when they were able, and on occasion, played some footsie under diner tables.

"Eat the fucking sandwich," Ronan said.

Adam took a bite of the fucking sandwich.

They happily enjoyed each other's company, talking about Adam's classes and work and Ronan's time spent with Opal — a name picked out by the young satyr herself — and teaching her basic human skills. Among those skills were hiding her hooves under tights and boots overstuffed with socks to make up for the missing space. Blue helped out with those materials, and Opal affectionately decorated her own hair with various pins during the process to match. Adam laughed at the picture Ronan showed him of the mess. Rainbow clips and gauze and haphazard stitching attempts. All of it reminded Adam of his newfound quiet belonging.

It was a damn good date, and he could stare into unusually softened eyes all he wanted.

The diner usually wasn't a haunt for the Aglionby type; too cheap with scuffed floors, and much farther than Nino's from the school. But sometimes other kinds of types haunted it.

Adam had the extreme misfortune of overhearing a muttered word in a muttered sentence from the booth behind him. Abruptly, Ronan's fingers stilled on his, and his eyes became bereft of the tenderness that filled them before. It was a truly terrible word, one that hadn't bothered Adam as much a year ago but one he couldn't stand now.

They were talking about them. Two boys at a public diner, holding hands.

Ronan was fierce. They'd finished their food several minutes ago, content to chat, but Ronan tugged a few bills out of his wallet (Adam had picked up yesterday's dinner, so this was acceptable) and set them on the table, standing up. Adam withdrew as well, looking down, and followed him out of the booth. He made one step forward before he was staring at white-gray Adidas planted firmly in front of him.

"Jesus, your kind go out in public?"

They weren't Aglionby boys. Tattered t-shirts and cargo pants, worn-out sneakers and grimy hands were telltale of the local public school that Adam had transferred out of years ago. He didn't know their faces, let alone their names, but it was still familiar. They were from the same place as him; hailing from trailer parks and destitution; Henrietta through and through. However, it was a choice for them to be this way, to remain intolerant when faced with the other. Adam had chosen otherwise, and was headed in a different direction despite where he started from.

Adam wanted to close his eyes, but knew it would look like a weakness. He wanted to breathe fire, but knew that Cabeswater had its limits, and was still silently missing from his mind since a rainy and bloody autumn day. He wanted to end the world's hatred of people like him and of people like Ronan, and the world's overflowing wells of prejudice clawed at his throat and bit at his nails.

In this moment, it was the easiest it's ever been to see where Blue was coming from.

"What, gonna say something?" Like a flickering light, ugly hands came up to shove Adam's shoulders, and Adam's landscape of thought shifted drastically.

Violence was an old wound; not a new one, never a nice one. And this hurt more as a shock that spliced the previous hour with Ronan away.

Adam caught himself on his heels, his breath leaving his lungs as a pinprick of adrenaline started telling him _flight_. Door that way, straight ahead, bodies between him and safety; options flickering like projector slides as he figured a way out. But something else caught the boy's advance — Ronan's open hand, palm slammed into his chest, rendered him a safe distance away.

Scoffing, the boy batted away Ronan's hand with the back of his wrist, and leaned forward with a twist to his terrible smile.

"Try to get in my face," Ronan said. Adam had never heard Ronan's voice like this, and he'd heard it with venom, with vigor, angry and despicable. This sounded like it could be the last thing you heard before you died. His posture was a death threat itself, balled fist at his side and sturdily in front of Adam's shoulder.

"You his bitch, then? Can't stand up for his lonesome."

Ronan's fist trembled. It was a distant, unexpected wonder that it had not flown already.

Observers started murmuring. A large man behind the counter, grease on his apron, hollered at them to take it outside. This distracted the looming group of boys in front of them. Adam did not want this to continue outside. He did not want it to continue at all. Ronan's curled hand looked like it could move at any moment.

Instead, it unclenched, and briskly, Ronan grabbed Adam by the elbow and shoved the rest of his way through the beastly boys, and they laughed as he pushed by. Adam stared hard at the tiled ground, which had gone a little blurry.

The ding of the diner bell door sounded like an angelic trumpet; the cold air a chill to his racing thoughts, slowing them down. Still, they spun and sputtered, and he noted rather out-of-bodily that he was not breathing normally. His shoulders burned with the sensation of being touched, harmfully, even though no mark had been left. The mark was at the back of his mind, bruising blows against his cerebellum, _Parrish_ , hands curling around his skin and he was bleeding, could feel the blood seeping into his shirt and soiling it, dirtying it just like the rest of him, _Parrish_ , his breathing was worse and pulsing along with his veins, seeing the bumpy face of the tall boy warping into the face of —

"Adam!"

Ronan was gently holding both of his elbows, looking straight at him. He had been saying his name. Adam blinked. He registered he was lowly hyperventilating, and his legs felt shaky. There was no sign of blood on the sleeve of his shirt when he looked down at it. _Of course there wasn't_. He wasn't cut, wasn't bruised. God, was this how it was going to be?

"Can we go home?" he asked.

Ronan didn't delay. Nodding, he let go of his forearms and dug around his pocket for the BMW keys.

Adam stared at the tires, noting their patterned ridges and scuffed texture. The tail lights flashed as the doors unlocked, and Adam got in the passenger side. His mind was in a trailer, in a diner, in a car, everywhere like a rainstorm stretching across cities, drenched and extended across the ley lines to far-off places he'd never been.

"You alright?" Ronan hadn't stopped eyeing him.

This question was kind of bad to ask. "Uh," Adam responded, because there wasn't much more he was capable of saying.

"Shit," Ronan said after the ignition turned.

Adam said with effort, throat a little closed, "Let's just go home."

It was a glad thing to see the red neon lights fade in the side mirror. Adam's breath fogged the window, cheek pressed against the cold glass to relieve some of the warmth on his face. They barely got half a mile on the deserted country road before it became too much.

"Pull over." Adam's eyes were covered by a hand over his forehead.

"Why?"

"Dunno. Feel like I might puke. Don't want to do it in your car."

Ronan pulled over.

He didn't end up puking, but he braced his hands on his knees, bent over the grass and dirt on the side of the road like he was going to.

"Hey."

"I'm not mad. Just feel weird." Adam didn't face him; didn't invite for comfort. His posture said he was handling it.

Ronan seemed abated by this, and sat on the hood of the BMW while Adam collected himself. Sore guilt bothered the back of his mind, seeing Ronan looking a little lost at not knowing what to do. But it was hard to know how to go about this, whatever it was, and Adam was only sort of figuring it out. Long breaths soothed his rolling stomach, and he stared into the empty dusk field lining the highway, patches slightly turning from brown to green from the spring rains. The details of the uneven horizon drew his interest mindfully away from the fringed edges of his panic, fading into a controlled focus as his body relaxed.

Adam was practiced at healing himself. A forest no longer protected his heart, but his heart held the memory of its mending closeby, always closeby.

After a few minutes, he straightened, and shook off some dust from his shoes. He joined Ronan on the hood of the car. Cautiously, Ronan took his hand, and Adam squeezed back in reassurance. Laced fingers were a stitching job keeping him from fraying like the seams of his secondhand school sweater.

"Does it," Ronan paused, seeming to choose his words carefully, "Does it bother you that I'm quick to fight?"

The confrontation in the diner became a little more clear to Adam. "No. That's not it." And it was true. The temper of Ronan Lynch and his and deep-seated need to express it physically was a powerful habit, but it was not something that made Adam fearful. "It's — of course you get yourself into stupid shit, but... no." Adam settled on those words, letting them sink in and he decided that they were correct after hearing them out loud. Ronan's actions were free from the burden of being tied to bad memories. In fact, his brutal passion sometimes reminded him of the opposite. And he knew that Ronan would never turn that towards him; he knew that with his whole soul. Then, "Did you not hit him because of me?"

Ronan's brow pulled together and he did not look away. It was enough of an answer. No punches had been thrown for Adam's benefit. Ronan, a tall fighter backed by rage and defensiveness, was curbed by his reluctance to bring Adam into a violent altercation of his own making.

"There were more of them than us," he said. "It could have gotten messy."

"Yeah," Adam replied. "Math, Lynch, that's very rational of you."

Ronan huffed, but his fingers stroked Adam's. His index finger brushed over Adam's first knuckle like it was coaxing a bundle of nerves to unwind. Really, Adam was impressed that he had the state of mind necessary for that moment when Adam had not. "You're rubbing off on me, I guess."

A swell of contentment came over Adam and pulled some humor on his face. "But if it was just him," he said, "You would have torn him a new one."

"Fucking bet I would."

Suddenly, all Adam needed to do was kiss him, very badly. He took his scruffy face in his hands, thumbs pleasantly abrading on stubble, and kissed him wholly, fully-minded and let everything else become fuzzy around him. The only thing in focus was the press of their mouths, moving together. A sigh warmed Adam's face and he kissed it away.

"Don't puke on me," Ronan said with no voice, all air.

Adam smiled, showing teeth. "I'm over that," he said, and gave him another slow press to his bottom lip to convince him. Ronan's hands circling his sides let him know that it was believed.

When they broke apart, both their cheeks were pink.

"If I ever see that crowd again, I'll deck them on sight."

Adam rolled his eyes. He said thoughtfully, "We should have slashed their tires."

"Adam. _Parrish_." The scandal of it was clear in his voice, and he dragged Adam back in for a hard kiss. Adam felt the last of his tension slip from his spine, and he melted when it was gone.

Not all of his nerves had recovered from the echo of jittery unease, but at least in the present, things were quiet. The idea of his body betraying him like that made him more restless than the actual moments, sometimes. He hoped it could get better. That things like this wouldn't set him off so unpredictably. But Ronan was here, too, to help. Nothing had to be done alone anymore: Adam Parrish, no longer an island. Hope like that allowed him to breathe easier.

When they got back to the Barns, Adam toed the front door shut and pressed Ronan against it, slotting a leg in between his. The groan that was wrenched from him was of surprise. "You know," Adam said breathily, "I was thinking of just having you in the back seat."

Ronan's eyes widened. It gave Adam immense and nervous pleasure to do this to him. He kept talking. "Seeing you like that was hot."

"You're not supposed to be encouraging me," growled Ronan.

Adam hummed and dragged the back of his fingers along Ronan's stomach. "Yeah, well," he dismissed, and nosed into his neck to touch his mouth to skin.

Long after his insides had settled, the evening chanced at a vulnerability that once would have been a stoppage. Now, used to no judgment and freely-given affection, Adam wasn't afraid to loose his threads. They pooled around his feet, and he pulled Ronan upstairs to bed.

**Author's Note:**

> title from a poem by E. E. Cummings (one of the lines has "most perfect gay" but i only noticed after rereading it i promise). this is my first posted fic aaa please leave a comment if you liked it!


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